Yesterday was the first of March, St. David’s Day.  Although there was frost on the ground, the sun, when it broke through the cloud, was shining brightly and with real warmth.  The snowdrops and primulas have already been in flower for some time and yesterday I noticed that the dwarf daffodil buds are swelling.  When I drove out at 6.15 p.m., there was still some daylight left.  Spring is pushing aside a bleak winter!

Yesterday was also the day on which I wrote the last few sentences of Almost Love.  Because of the non-sequential way in which I write (a habit that I am trying to break), they belong to a chapter about one hundred pages from the end; it was a chapter that I’d been trying to finalise for some time.  Then, when there was nothing else left to work on (and therefore no way out of attending to it), it almost sorted itself, quietly and relatively quickly.

There’s still revision to be done, of course, although I revise all the time while I’m writing, but rounding off this novel has been quite different from finishing In the Family, which left me feeling battered and dazed.  (I remember it well, partly because it was completed on the day of the royal wedding, which gave me more time to myself than usual.)  This time I just felt happy in an understated sort of way.

The next novel is germinating at the back of my mind.  It will need quite a lot of research, which I shall enjoy.  For the moment, however, I shall focus on tending to Almost Love and enjoying the time before it bursts into bloom in June.

• Almost Love In the Family primulas snowdrops spring winter